“The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so.”

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Gore Vidal

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“We are tossed about by external causes in many ways, and like waves driven by contrary winds, we waver and are unconscious of the issue and our fate. We think we are most ourselves when we are most passionate, whereas it is then we are most passive, caught in some ancestral torrent of impulse or feeling, and swept on to a precipitate reaction which meets only part of the situation because without thought only part of a situation can be perceived.”

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Will Durant

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“The reactionary is always willing to take a progressive attitude on any issue that is dead.”

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Theodore Roosevelt

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So.

It would be an understatement to say that the number of ways a leader can lead are so numerous it would most likely take a book to explain them all <and people have certainly tried>. Trying to simplistic suggest “this is the way to lead” is simplistic tripe.

That said. Today I am talking about reactionary leaders. I sometimes call this “I told you so” leadership.

For those of us who have had the fortune, or misfortune, of walking the halls of management in business we have all crossed paths with the scary tactics of a reactionary manager & leader <I call them leaders because they have the title not because they know how to lead>. Reactionary leaders are the leaders who do not really have the ability to articulate an idea well enough for the idea to gain traction and be implemented. It is far more likely that the idea is just not worthy of any meaningful traction but suffice it to say they are a leader/manager and their idea will inevitably hover.

Their ideas hover in the background within a sliver of people who agree and maybe even a majority of people’s minds as “well, in a certain situation maybe we would do that.” Or maybe their idea is misguided for the overall vision of the greater good of the organization but is a tactic, a tool, which would fit in a different situation or organization <and this leader isn’t smart enough to know the difference between a tactic & strategy or how sometimes short term tools stay in a toolkit simply because they may not fit the longer term vision or even that the tool is just not something that is right for that organization>.

The rest of us warily watching this reactionary leader mostly thinking “why don’t you go elsewhere with that idea?” but we remain wary because we sense rather than retool the tool, or simply scrap the tool, that reactionary leader is tiptoeing around a belief they want to warp the overall vision of the organization so that the tool suddenly fits. But what makes this reactionary leader so scary, and dangerous, is they lay in wait. Their ideas simmer in their heads waiting for the boiling point that they are sure, if they are patient, will inevitably arise.

They wait for that moment and at that time they stand up and say “I told you so” while holding up the idea like a standard bearer leading a charge. It is within that moment when more sane, more longer view, managers see the danger. For in that moment the short term idea can be seen, through a certain type of lens, as a longer term vision.

Yeah.

A tactic becomes the flag behind which an entire organization can rally behind. It is from that tactic this reactionary leader, well, grabs the reaction to the ‘I told you so’moment and swerves the entire organization onto a completely different path. These leaders <and, yes, I want to call them ‘false leaders’> lie in wait eager to demonstrate the effective tactic they have espoused for years.

They are eager to vindicate themselves, so eager, they will use the smallest of ‘I told you so’ events to jump in with the tactic <cloaking the tactic in a false longer term idea>. After years of having their idea, or quasi-ideas, diminished and relegated to the loony bin management idea scrap heap they relish the clash inherent in an ‘I told you so’ moment. The bigger the ‘I told you so’ the bigger they make their own idea <making it look bigger by attaching as many tactics as possible to the idea itself>.

The reactionary leader uses a moment, a solitary event, as proof of a larger ‘belief’ <which they call a truth>. It is kind of like using a single data point to imply it is an actual trend.

It is quite possible, if they are crafty enough, to have the cleverness to rummage around for several more dubious data points to create a rickety looking trend <suggesting the trend is as solid as bridge>.

It is quite possible if they are crafty enough they will use the ‘I told you so’ moment to draw an increasing amount of people into actually believing not only the importance of the tactic itself but also the underlying more widespread ‘truth’ from which the tactic springs forth.

It is quite possible if they are crafty enough they will wrench the entire organization from the more sane rational vision to a misguided emotional reaction driven vision <one which meets only part of the situation because without thought only part of a situation can be perceived>.

Well. It is in that latter point where the greatest danger lies to an organization. The rest of us see this moment as the first step onto a dangerous road … one from which we fear, once started down, becomes increasingly difficult to turn back from. The rest of us see this moment as, well, a potential shift in gravity.

Organizations tend to have their own gravity. Once they start moving in a direction … assuming you can align emotional & rational gravity … it gains momentum.

Regardless.

If you haven’t been in management “I told you so” events can be viewed incorrectly. Why?

In everyday personal Life it seems like we run into ‘I told you so’ events so often we begin to confuse them as not an aberration but rather the normal <which if we truly invested energy researching the truth we would find patterns are not always patterns and exceptions are more the rule>.

Therefore if you haven’t been in a leadership position in which you have had an opportunity to view things from the top down rather than the bottom up you could quite easily scramble to get behind a leader who held up an “I told you so” event who was claiming it was a pattern to be addressed and not an outlier or aberration to the larger view of the world.

I admit. I always get a little uneasy as soon as I hear “I told you so.” I feel uneasy because in my gut I start sensing that the “I told you so” will be quickly followed by something that person has held in their hip pocket for quite some time as a “here is what you should have done … or you should do from here on out.” To be clear that doesn’t mean it it’s a contextual solution but rather it is just a “I told you so” solution.

The biggest issue? “I told you so” solutions tend to be simplistic dull edged tactics offered for what is actually a nuanced complex situation. Therein lies the biggest strength a reactionary “I told you so” leader has – simplicity. Because it is a reaction they have the opportunity to dumb down anything & everything to a simplistic “if this, then that” cause & effect action.

95% of leaders recognize that this is not only a false premise for thinking but faulty behavior for the situation. 5% of leaders see this as their opportunity to “win the moment” and in winning the moment drive through the opportunity reveling in the clash as the reward they deserve for all the past perceived slights they endured.

We should all be wary of any “I told you so” moments. The speaker, more often than not, is using the opportunity to showcase something – hubris, smarts, ego, narcissism, ignorance, etc.

It can be well intended and it can be ill intended.

View it wisely.

Make your choice wisely.

What I do know, from experience, is that a reactionary leader is rarely a wise leader. Their organizations rarely wisely navigate the path to success and are more likely to forge a path strewn with conflict and a see saw of wins & losses where the organization gets stripped of moral & purpose-driven behaviors out of simple survival.

What I do know, from experience, is that I have no desire to be part of that type of organization.

“… of finding every petty race wedded to its own opinions; claiming the monopoly of Truth; holding all others to be in error … in the business of the visible working world they are confessedly by no means superior to one another; whereas in abstruse matters of mere Faith, not admitting direct and sensual evidence, one in a hundred will claim to be right, and immodestly charge the other ninety-nine with being wrong.”

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Sir Richard Burton

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Ok.

I maybe should have titled this ‘viewing faith, as in religious faith, with open eyes’.

To be clear. I love having face to face conversations about religion. I find most people are passionate in their beliefs, or non beliefs, and … when pushed … are articulate and thoughtful and insightful.

I may agree, or not agree, but it is irrelevant.

Its irrelevant if you truly care about learning about a person. If you ever want to delve into people’s attitudes & behavior discuss religion and faith. It gets the heart pumping, the mind swirling and the soul … well … it is food for the soul.

By the way. Any discussion is food for the soul.

Now. I typically don’t like to write about religion. And certainly avoid writing about faith. And, yes, they can be different.

I hesitate because in writing about religious beliefs one’s meaning can be misconstrued with one simple word. Therefore weaving one’s way through a minefield of unintended meanings in a ‘loose’ word tends to make writing about religion difficult <and sometimes quite unrewarding>.

And faith?

Well. One’s faith is, well, one’s faith. Debating one’s faith is like debating whether a dawn is more beautiful than a sunset. All I know for sure is that as long as you view either dawn or sunset as beautiful in some way you are good <at least with me>.

All that said.

I recently used a great quote from a British adventurer, Sir Richard Francis Burton, and he wrote something about religion and faith that made me decide to take a chance and put something out there in writing.

First. About Burton.

Sir Richard Burton, who died in 1890, was a British consul, explorer, translator, writer, poet and swordsman known for his travel and exploration adventures as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures.

Bram Stoker said of Burton <describing a meeting together in September 1886>:

… Burton had a most vivid way of putting things. He had both a fine imaginative power and a memory richly stored not only from study but from personal experience. As he talked, fancy seemed to run riot in its alluring power; and the whole world of thought seemed to flame with gorgeous colour. Burton knew the East. Its brilliant dawns and sunsets; its rich tropic vegetation, and its arid fiery deserts; its cool, dark mosques and temples; its crowded bazaars; its narrow streets; its windows guarded for out-looking and from in-looking eyes; the pride and swagger of its passionate men, and the mysteries of its veiled women; its romances; its beauty; its horrors.

Second.

Burton pondered a shitload of issues as he traveled and when he wrote he tended to write from a third person perspective by placing an ‘enlightened person’ into the role of the thinker and questioner and ‘philosophical muse’.

So. All that I just wrote leads me to share something from one of his writings:

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“… looks with impartial eye upon the endless variety of systems, maintained with equal confidence and self-sufficiency, by men of equal ability and honesty. He is weary of wandering over the world, and of finding every petty race wedded to its own opinions; claiming the monopoly of Truth; holding all others to be in error, and raising disputes whose violence, acerbity and virulence are in inverse ratio to the importance of the disputed matter.

A peculiarly active and acute observation taught him that many of these jarring families, especially those of the same blood, are par in the intellectual processes of perception and reflection; that in the business of the visible

working world they are confessedly by no means superior to one another; whereas in abstruse matters of mere Faith, not admitting direct and sensual evidence, one in a hundred will claim to be right, and immodestly charge the other ninety-nine with being wrong.Thus he seeks to discover a system which will prove them all right, and all wrong; which will reconcile their differences; will unite past creeds; will account for the present, and will anticipate the future with a continuous and uninterrupted development; this, too, by a process, not negative and distinctive, but, on the contrary, intensely positive and constructive. I am not called upon to sit in the seat of judgment; but I may say that it would be singular if the attempt succeeded. Such a system would be all-comprehensive, because not limited by space, time, or race; its principle would be extensive as Matter itself, and, consequently, eternal.

Meanwhile he satisfies himself, — the main point.

Christianity and Islamism have been on their trial for the last eighteen and twelve centuries. They have been ardent in proselytizing, yet they embrace only one-tenth and one-twentieth of the human race. He would account for the tardy and unsatisfactory progress of what their votaries call “pure truths,” by the innate imperfections of the same. Both propose a reward for mere belief, and a penalty for simple unbelief; rewards and punishments being, by the way, very disproportionate. Thus they reduce everything to the scale of a somewhat unrefined egotism; and their demoralizing effects become clearer to every progressive age.”

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Richard Burton

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Well.

I admit. Religions confuse me a lot.

Confuse me in that, within really good discussions, I often find myself discussing what I believe is perfectly a nuance <from which there seems, to me, to be disproportionate penalties & objections> compared to what another person believes is an imperfect perception of a perfect important truth <my nuance is not even close to a nuance to them>.

I imagine this confusion on my part is simply because I just do not understand. I imagine that in some way I have never really understood faith. But I will also admit … I don’t want to be confused and I do want to understand.

Where others are quick to suggest religion and faith is outdated or worthless or unequivocally flawed … I do not. I do not reject – I want to accept. In my mind that most likely means that maybe, just maybe, I just haven’t found the way yet.

But that doesn’t mean I will not continue seeking.

Regardless. Burton, a much smarter man than I, apparently struggled with the same issues as I.

In that I take some solace.

To be clear.

Burton, as I, was not an atheist. He believed in God. Thomas Wright reminded us that Burton said this of Christ:

“He had given an impetus to the progress of mankind by systematizing a religion of the highest moral loveliness, showing what an imperfect race can and may become.”

I imagine religion and faith confuses me because in the end … don’t they all reflect we are an imperfect race of people and, yet, each religion wants us and encourages us to be all, or the best, we may become?